


Last Stall on the Left

by Brumeier



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bathrooms, Blood, Blood and Injury, Community: ushobwri, Gen, Ghosts, Haunting, Shopping Malls, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 20:24:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20981846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: Zara almost cried when she saw the sign for the Amity Hill mall. The screaming didn't start until she was in the bathroom.





	Last Stall on the Left

**Author's Note:**

> Written for:
> 
> [Whatif_AU:](https://whatif-au.dreamwidth.org/68649.html) Supernatural  
[Spooktober Challenge:](https://spooktoberchallenge.dreamwidth.org/) blood  
[Monster Fest:](https://ushobwri.dreamwidth.org/250819.html) Ghosts, Ghouls, and Wraith

Zara almost cried when she saw the sign for the Amity Hill mall.

She didn’t know what she’d been thinking, getting such a big soda at the last rest stop. Then again, she hadn’t realized the exits off the highway were going to start spreading out so much. Zara wished she was brave enough to pee on the side of the road. She also wished her best friend Casey hadn’t moved so damn far away.

The sky was turning the dusky indigo of deep twilight when Zara pulled into the mall parking lot. There weren’t many cars, so she was able to get a spot near the closest entrance. Running for the doors was out of the question in her current state, so she walked as fast as she could while clenching everything below the waist.

Zara was bombarded by the scents wafting out of Cinnabon and Auntie Anne’s as soon as she was through the door, and she made a mental note to come back for road trip snacks. (No soda this time.) After a frantic search for the nearest restroom she finally saw the overhead sign with the arrow and followed it.

The bathroom was down an impossibly long hallway, and Zara’s steps echoed on the tile floor as she walked. The men’s room was at the end of the hall and the women’s room branched off down yet another, shorter hallway. Luckily there was no line. In fact, when Zara pushed through the bathroom door she was the only one inside.

She barely had time to do a cursory wipe of the seat – her grandmother had always been a big proponent of hovering, but Zara couldn’t do that without making a mess – before she had to sit down or pee all over herself.

Ah, sweet relief!

All the tension bled out of Zara’s limbs as she emptied her bladder. That had been a close one. For the next leg of the trip, she’d –

BAM!

The door to the stall next to hers slammed open and Zara startled. Had she missed someone coming in? She leaned over and looked for feet under the next stall, but there were none.

Suddenly realizing just how empty the bathroom was, Zara hurriedly wrapped things up and was out of the stall almost before the auto flush kicked in. Where was everyone, anyway? The women’s bathroom was usually pretty busy. At the moment it was all too easy for Zara to imagine a pervert coming in and attacking her. She almost didn’t wash her hands, but some habits were too ingrained.

The faucets were on sensors, too, and it took several tries before Zara could get hers to kick on. She kept a nervous eye on the bathroom door while she gave her hands a cursory rinse, all the while waiting for it to slam open and let in a man with a really big knife. When the faucet cut off she turned back to the mirror, and forgot how to breathe.

There was someone standing right behind her.

Correction. There was a terrifyingly bloody someone standing right behind her. A young girl, no older than eighteen. Her face was swollen and bruised, blood running from a gash on her forehead and a split lip.

Zara whirled around, knocking her hip painfully into the sink. No-one was there.

“Fucking fuck,” she breathed.

Way past time to get back on the road, and Cinnabon could screw itself. Zara turned toward the door and her feet slid unexpectedly on the tile floor. She had to grab the counter to steady herself, and for a long moment couldn’t process what she was seeing.

The entire bathroom was bloody, like someone had taken a bucket of the stuff and just started splashing it around. Blood streaked down the mirrors, pooled in the sinks, and dripped onto the floor with a steady _plunk-plunk-plunk_ sound that seemed to echo. Zara snatched her hand off the counter and her stomach roiled when she saw it, too, was now bloody.

The lights started to flicker, the sink faucets randomly started turning on and off, and the woman was back, standing between Zara and the door. Her tee-shirt was full of slash marks, the whole thing soaked in blood just like her jeans and her Converse sneakers.

Zara’s skin flashed hot and cold, and she was pretty sure if she opened her mouth she’d start screaming and never stop. Her hand, covered with the other’s girl’s blood, trembled, and the thick, coppery smell that now pervaded the bathroom made her want to puke.

The lights went out.

_No, no, no_, Zara thought frantically, eyes straining to see in the inky darkness. Her heart was pounding so hard in her ears she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hear anything else. She held herself as still as possible, barely even breathing.

Someone – or some_thing_ – touched her arm.

Zara broke and ran, feet slipping and sliding before gaining purchase. She didn’t give a fuck if she ran over or through that girl, but she made it to the door unimpeded. The scream that had been lodged in her throat finally escaped as she yanked the door open and pelted out into the hall. She bounced off the wall and was halfway down the longer part of the hallway when she realized her hand wasn’t bloody anymore.

She stopped, chest heaving, and looked down at her feet. No blood there either. Zara chanced a look back, but she couldn’t see the door to the women’s bathroom from where she was standing.

No way in hell was she going back there.

It was like stepping out of a dream and back into the real world when she exited that hall. There was a woman wiping something off a little boy’s face, a couple holding hands as they walked by, and a group of teenagers pushing each other and laughing. The competing food smells returned full force.

Zara turned around. 

“The fuck?”

The hallway was gone, replaced by a solid, cream-colored wall. Zara touched it, just to be sure. It _felt_ real. But so had everything in the bathroom. She looked up, but all the signs that had pointed her way were now pointing elsewhere.

She didn’t waste one more second. This time she did run, not caring what people might think as she blew past them. She got back in her car, cranked the radio, and drove a little too fast to the onramp for the highway.

“That never happened,” Zara told herself.

She didn’t stop again until she got to Casey’s house.

**Author's Note:**

> **AN:** This haunted bathroom fic came about in part because I love ghost stories, and also because I recently used the bathroom at my local mall, which is down a long back hallway, then down another shorter hallway, and it was empty when I was in there and I couldn’t help thinking what a great place that was for someone to be murdered. Because that’s how my mind works. ::grins:: Coincidentally (or possibly not) I was using that bathroom after having gone to the movies to see _It Chapter Two_.
> 
> I went orig fic with this one because there wasn’t anyone in fandom I felt strongly enough about popping into this particular situation.


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